


Mighty

by ArisKatsaris



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-10
Updated: 2005-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-03 18:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2860193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisKatsaris/pseuds/ArisKatsaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First posted in livejournal on May 10, 2005 -- as response to a request by <b>evilstorm</b>, who asked for a Silmarillion ficlet, but otherwise left the topic free.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Mighty

**Author's Note:**

> First posted in livejournal on May 10, 2005 -- as response to a request by **evilstorm** , who asked for a Silmarillion ficlet, but otherwise left the topic free.

“My father said what?! Oh father, father! You can be so _unthinking_ sometimes.” She looked incredulous, the bright elf-princess of Eglador… and the boy couldn't understand why.

“Why are you angry?” he asked.

She laughed, prettily. “Oh, I’m not angry. Not really. But sometimes it almost seems as if Father hasn't listened to what Mother has taught the whole kingdom.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll tell you. Climb with me, little brother.”

The boy was hesitant at first, but the king’s daughter whispered to the oak, and though the boy didn't see it actually move or change in any way, when he climbed up it almost seemed to him that the tree held him fast also, not letting him fall.

“For love of the Children, most of all,” the king’s daughter began, “did the Powers come into the world. So our Queen, my Mother, taught us. They came from outside the World, in might, to shape the World for our benefit – we the children, however, are of the World itself, and enter into it naked and weak, and are shaped by it even as we help enrich it.

“Naked and weak, but for three gifts.

“There’s the gift of our spirits, which is directly given to each of us by Ilúvatar, in perfect harmony with our bodies, except imperishable as long as the world lasts.

“And there’s the gift of our bodies’ strength, which gets nourishment from the world, but at beginning is received in full from the mother’s own.

“And finally, little brother, there’s our name, which is usually given by the father, or at least declared by him. And it _is_ a precious gift, little brother, for nobody ever names what is unimportant to them. But by naming a person we recognize them as significant, like us and yet other, a note with its own beauty in the third theme of the Great Song."

She paused and sighed.

“So you’ll understand me, little brother, why I find Father hard to believe in this. Saying that you may pick your own name since your parents gave you none! Making an achievement out of what should be pure gift! That they failed you that gift, should not be a reason that we fail you in it too. Other names you may devise for yourself in time, perhaps, but the first name, given you in love and recognition, that _should_ be a gift, the first gift…”

Her voice died down. He was silent and gloomy.

She lifted his chin with a finger. “Hey, little brother. My father’s silliness is a small thing – his error easily corrected. Can you tell me what he said to you again, word for word?”

The boy nodded. “The king said to me ‘Stay then here, in Eglador, child of the wilderness that knows no father. And since you have been given none of your own, you may come to figure out a name for yourself, when the years have made you mighty.’ And then he told his captain to bring me to you. ”

Her lips twitched in a smile – not of kindness this time, but of pure clear amusement.

“Ah, father, father! Better spoken than I had given him credit for. Very well then. The world has already shown its will: you are much taller for your age than is usual, you may not know – and my father spoke it, though whether he intended it or not is still a mystery – and I recognize it and gift it to you, sweet little brother of the wilderness. You are now, and for ever more, Mighty. Be sure to become.”

And the boy liked that name, tasting its syllables slowly, and long treasured the gifts given him by the lady Lúthien of Eglador in those moments – recognition, and affectionate love, and sincere wish: Become Mighty.

And so Beleg became.


End file.
